Chapter 28 Study Guide
Popular Culture in the Roaring
Twenties
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• Causes of consumer culture were increasing
amounts of radio and print advertising create
desire; greater availability of new products:
electrification of homes spurred new
appliances; frequent changes of style made to
induce consumers to buy often.
• Effects of the consumer culture were the
invention of new products cost more than old,
prompting the growth of installment buying.
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Air transportation: Technological developments
from World War I led to flights for entertainment
and mail delivery, which led to the growth of
commercial aviation; new technology developed
by Henry Ford made safer, more powerful planes,
boosting passenger flights; people could travel
farther and faster. Automobiles: Henry Ford made
cars more affordable and plentiful; cars gave
women and teens new freedom; ended the
isolation of farmers; changed where people lived
as suburbs grew; led to more paved roads; new
businesses sprang up to serve the needs of car
travelers.
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The Roaring Twenties was the American decade of
the 1920’s which represented a change in culture
and is exemplified by a celebratory lifestyle. As
newspapers, magazines, radios, and movies
became more accessible, popular culture became
more common across the nation, causing regional
differences to fade. Radio made news more
immediate, and movies exposed Americans to
new fashions and a loosening of the rules of
social behavior. The Charleston a popular dance
in the 1920’s which began as an African American
folk dance in the South and eventual came to
represent a decade in American history.
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• The passage of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920,
the rise of organizations such as the League of Women
Voters, a grassroots organization formed to educate
voters on the public issues in education, and the
election of women to public office gave women new
ways to participate in politics. In addition, women
during this time became increasingly active in health
care reform and the fight for equal rights. As a result,
the 1920’s brought expanded educational and job
opportunities and increased incomes for women.
Many young women rebelled against old customs.
They fought for changes in the law such as the Equal
Rights Amendment which was an attempt to pass a
constitutional amendment to guarantee equal rights
based on gender.
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The origins of Jazz were in Blues and ragtime, which
grew out of African rhythms, European harmonies,
African American folk music and work songs, and 19th
Century American band music and instruments. Jazz
began in New Orleans and spread by boat and railroad
to other cities. Night clubs an radio helped the spread,
and jazz became the first uniquely American music to
be popular around the world. Musicians: Duke
Ellington, Benny Goodman, Jelly Roll Morton, Bessie
Smith, Louis Armstrong. It marked a period referred to
as the Jazz Age a term used describe the 1920’s it
represented a new form of music which focused on an
improvisational nature.
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• Harlem Renaissance A term used describe the 1920’s it represented
a new form of music which focused on an improvisational nature.
Harlem Renaissance writers and white writers of the 1920’s were
critical of traditional American values. African American writers
explored what it meant to be black in America and expressed the
longing for equality. Examples: Langston Hughes, James Weldon
Johnson, Zora Neal Hurston. The Lost Generation reacted to the
brutality of World War I and growing consumer culture, expressing
the rootless feelings of young people after the war. Examples:
Gertrude Stein, e. e. Cummings, Ernest Hemmingway, F. Scott
Fitzgerald, Jon Dos Passo, Sherwood Anderson. Other writers also
found fault with American life, critiquing the moral emptiness of
the upper class, the narrowness of life in small town America, and
the tragedy of everyday life. They were called the Lost generation
a term used to describe those in the 1920’s who felt a sense of
disillusionment(sadness) created by the horrors of WWI. Examples
were Sinclair Lewis, Eugene O'Neal.
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• Edward Hopper expressed a sense of
loneliness and isolation in his work. Rockwell
Kent created moody scenes of nature.
Georgia O'Keefe reflected the wide open West
and reacted to the speeding up of life by
painting huge paintings of small things that
peopl rarely took time to see in detail.